'We don't want to be the bottleneck for (business units) getting the information,' Steve Zoltick says

Ducky, one of three new tokens that will be included in upcoming versions of the board game Monopoly. Hasbro Inc. revealed the results of voting on March 17, 2017. Leaving the game will be the boot, wheelbarrow and thimble tokens.
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Wayne Parry/AP

Toymaker Hasbro Inc. hopes to cash in on social media data and other information that could steer the development of its traditional games and new digital offerings. That’s fueling growth inside the firm’s analytics group, where Chief Information Officer Steve Zoltick is working to put useful data into the hands of different business groups as fast as possible.

“We don’t want to be the bottleneck for them getting the information,” Mr. Zoltick said in an interview.

The analytics push, which started about a year and a half ago, remains in early stages but has grown quickly, Mr. Zoltick said. A team of six data scientists and analytics specialists within the IT department field dozens of requests each week from branding, finance, HR and other departments eager to learn how, say, the perception of a particular toy or game on social media correlates with sales.

Hasbro Inc. CIO Steve Zoltick says he spends at least half of his time working to understand different groups specific needs and helping them evaluate new technologies.
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Hasbro Inc.

Hasbro, which in the first three months of this year surpassed rival Mattel in quarterly revenue for the first time since 2000, runs a data lake that uses Hadoop and connects to internal systems like ERP as well as third-party vendors, such as a service that helps analyze social media sentiment.

Getting useful insight from those different sources requires some back-end customization. Working with the social media sentiment provider, for example, Hasbro compiled specific keywords to exclude chatter about “Monopoly” not related to the board game or to make sure it was getting data about the right “Transformers.”

Better access to data sets, analysis and reporting tools can help product teams more quickly tweak game or toy designs, digital or physical, based on their findings, Mr. Zoltick said. Information sources run the gamut, from social media data to sales figures and customer service trends. Mr. Zoltick declined to give a specific example of a case in which analytics influenced decision making in this way, saying “that’s the secret sauce.”

His team now is thinking about metrics that can tie analytics to a clear return on investment or increase in revenue. “It’s a question we’re always asked by the heads of business,” he said. “One of the things I explained to the senior management team was that you need to build this capability ... because people need to be able to leverage this information in your daily work.”

Hasbro has used analytics to identify early in the development process certain products that wouldn’t meet minimum revenue requirements. Doing so allowed them to redirect research and development funds to more profitable products. Hasbro declined to name specific products.

Providing business groups with the data they need is a key way Mr. Zoltick is embedding IT deeper inside the business. He says he spends at least half of his time working to understand different groups’ specific needs and helping them evaluate new technologies, particularly as Hasbro embarks on new digital initiatives.

“We’re so much more engaged and sitting in the business because the technology comes to them as fast as it’s coming to me,” he said.

Mr. Zoltick is holding a summit this month with Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary that produces “Magic: The Gathering” and other popular games, to discuss how it can better integrate with the firm’s data and analytics efforts.

IT is becoming more critical as teams across Hasbro build internet-connected toys, such as a mobile app that lets users interact with their connected Furby doll. Mr. Zoltick’s team increasingly is working with those groups to manage back-end code and prepare digital products for market, as well as exploring artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other emerging technologies.

“My ultimate goal is to help design the technical toy with them,” he said.